At Columbia: Linsanity Part II

ENLARGE

Freshman Winston Lin, 18 years old, practices at Columbia University last week. He's 19-1 playing singles this season and 5-0 in the Ivy League for the Lions.
Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

By

Jason Gay

April 19, 2012 8:28 p.m. ET

Psst: Linsanity never actually escaped New York. The mania merely resettled up here, off 218th Street, in a bubble on the Harlem River. In fact, Linsanity is standing on the court with me right now, blasting forehands at my feet.

Jeremy Lin? Wait—who's that again? This is Winston Lin.

Winston Lin, 18, is a freshman tennis phenom at Columbia University. He's 19-1 playing singles this season, 5-0 in the Ivy League for the Lions, who are currently 16-4 as a team and host Princeton Friday afternoon as they chase a league title and an NCAA tournament bid. While his story might not be as screenplay-ready as an overlooked Harvard point guard turned Knick hero, Winston Lin has snuck up on his sport, too. He became a junior tennis star growing up outside Buffalo—not a youth tennis hotbed like, say, Florida or Texas. He's not the brawniest guy: He's about 5 foot 10, 140 pounds, up 15 from the skinny 125 he brought to campus.

Then there's the way Lin looks when he puts a tennis hat on. "When I wear a hat, I look like a 4 year old," he says, laughing. "It's a reverse intimidation thing."

But the game is big. Lin is an aggressive all-court player, with a powerful topspin forehand honed by his childhood coach: his father Li, a professor of engineering at the University at Buffalo. Li Lin, who grew up in Beijing, China, didn't take up tennis until he was around 40, and his young son became his frequent playing companion, often indoors in the cold winters at the Miller Tennis Center in Williamsville, N.Y.

"We only had an hour a day, so we learned to be really efficient," says Winston, who also played baseball, hockey and soccer. "When we were on the court, there wasn't any fooling around. I focused."

By his teens it was clear that Winston had tennis potential—he won a slew of regional junior titles, but Li Lin admits the family was "in a way, totally naive" about their Winston's future prospects until colleges came calling.

"There's a Chinese saying, 'As long as the direction is correct, the goal doesn't have to be specific,' Li Lin said. "Looking back in the rear view, that's what we did."

Winston wound up choosing Columbia over Harvard, feeling a kinship with the school's longtime head coach, Bid Goswami, as well as Goswami's assistant, former Lions star Howie Endelman. Columbia has a rich tennis tradition—the school has won 10 Ivy League men's titles, eight of them under Goswami, including back-to-back ones in 2009 and 2010.

Goswami had been scouting another young player when he became entranced by his opponent, Lin. "I loved the way he moved—he was fearless," the coach recalls. He says Lin has thrived since arriving at Columbia. "He's been everything we hoped he'd be."

As Lin's college career has taken off, so have the Lions, who earlier this month beat Harvard, the current Ivy leader, before a pair of tough losses to Yale and Brown last weekend. Lin's ascension has been chronicled in the school newspaper, the Spectator, and naturally, there's also the irresistible shared name with a currently injured basketball star. At practice, Endelman, the assistant coach, wears a blue LINSANITY T-shirt with the "JEREMY" taped over and replaced with a handwritten "WINSTON."

"He deserves it," says Columbia senior Haig Schneiderman, the team's number-one singles player and Lin's frequent doubles partner. "He's worked extremely hard. And we have to thank Jeremy Lin as well—wouldn't be 'Linsanity' without Jeremy Lin. Even though he's a Harvard guy, we want to thank him."

Lin seems amused by the attention, but hardly distracted. His first semester, he was one of six Columbia freshmen on his team to post a grade point average of 3.6 or higher. While he intends to focus on economics and math, he also has aspirations of joining the pro tennis tour. "I'd like to give it a shot," he says. "But it's a long term thing."

"I think he has what it takes," says Goswami.

Winston and Jeremy; Jeremy and Winston. Could New York possibly handle Double Linsanity?

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